I was Jake (now I'm married)

Fidelity tracking poll, part two

As you may know, a few weeks ago I took 10 friends out for beers to poll them on cheating, the results of which I recorded in this space last week. Then, this week, I took my wife out for a beer and conducted the same cheating interview with her. It was enlightening--more enlightening than I'd hoped, actually. Here are the stats:

She has committed three major acts of infidelity in the history of her romantic life:

Cheated on her live-in boyfriend with her ex-boyfriend from college.

Cheated on a different live-in boyfriend with her then future boyfriend.

Secretly slept with the starting cornerback of her college football team consistently for six months while he was with his now wife.

Note: It's strange how you can know someone for five years, but until you sit them down and interview them, you don't quite get the narrative. I knew all these stories individually, but I confused them for each other--so I was a little freaked out that she had done all that.

When asked if she would cheat if she could get away with it, she sat there with the kind of inward gaze that you do not want your wife to have when you ask her this question. She was marshalling the forces of honesty, the courage to say the truth rather than what I wanted to hear or she wanted to believe. I can tell you that, as a married man, I have more than once caught myself saying what my wife wants to hear instead of the truth, without--and here's the important part--realizing that's what I was doing. At any rate, here's what she said:

The hard part for me wouldn't be telling you. Once I did it, I'd have to tell you. The hump would be the doing it. And afterward I'd feel the same whether you knew or not. You know what I mean? The failure would be there for me, either way, and that's what would matter. So no, whether I could get away with it or not doesn't have anything to do with it.

I really didn't want to interview her about us, but I did go this far: "Have you ever thought of anyone else while you and I were having sex?" And I provided a condition: "I will not ask you who it was." And she said no. She had never thought about another person while having sex with me. Except just after she saw Children of Men, when she briefly imagined she was with Clive Owen. That made me feel somehow gross--like I had been naked with Clive Owen, which I am not looking to do.

Note: The lesson I learned here is that I don't necessarily want to know exactly who else she's attracted to and when. Not to get too highbrow on you, but Derrida once said, "If a right to a secret is not maintained, then we are in a totalitarian state."